


Turnabout

by RetroactiveCon



Series: Stealing (Back) What You Want [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry Allen is a Pining Disaster, Cuddling & Snuggling, Feelings Realization, M/M, Rescue Missions, Secret Organizations, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-24 22:01:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22005157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon
Summary: It’s dangerous of him to react like this to intimacy with his villain, but in the space of a few months, they’ve gotten perilously fond of each other. At least, Barry has gotten perilously fond of Len. He has no idea if his feelings are reciprocated, and it’s presumptuous to believe they might be.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart
Series: Stealing (Back) What You Want [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1565986
Comments: 24
Kudos: 255





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Makacska](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makacska/gifts).



> I meant to return to this 'verse and write a thing where Barry and Len have a friends-with-benefits turned oops-we're-dating relationship, filled with lots of sex and fluff and ridiculousness, but then the whump bunnies attacked me and now there's a plot. (The first chapter doesn't look like it, but I swear there's a plot.)

“Oh God.” Barry giggles, languid and relaxed and still riding the high from his orgasm. “You ruined me. Really, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have sex with anyone else.” 

Len drops down beside him, looking as blissful as Barry feels. (Barry can’t pinpoint when he became ‘Len’—around the first time they had sex, but he can’t be more specific than that.) “Careful, Scarlet, I have enough issues with my ego as it is.” 

Barry flushes happily at being called ‘Scarlet.’ It’s dangerous of him to react like this to intimacy with his villain, but in the space of a few months, they’ve gotten perilously fond of each other. At least, Barry has gotten perilously fond of Len. He has no idea if his feelings are reciprocated, and it’s presumptuous to believe they might be. “Well, yeah, I could have told you that, but in this case, _fuck._ I ache all over in the best possible way.” He makes a show of stretching. Len watches him with undisguised hunger. 

“Careful,” he says again. “I might never let you out of bed.” 

Barry shivers—that’s not a threat he’d mind even a little bit—and leans close for a kiss. Len stops him with a finger pressed to his lips. “Remember, we agreed. No kissing outside of sex.”

“Right.” Barry tries not to pout. He knows they’re just fucking, knows Len has no reason to want anything more, but there are times (like now) when he’d give anything for a little tenderness. “Um, I should probably go. Joe is gonna wonder what happened to me.” 

Len tilts his head. It’s impossible to read his expression; Barry has learned not to try. “You don’t want to stay?” 

Barry shakes his head. It’s petulant of him to leave after being denied a kiss, but he knows if he stays, he’ll focus on it so intensely that he won’t be able to enjoy cuddling. “I can’t. Joe is starting to ask questions about who I spend my nights with.” 

Len nods. “And the last thing I want is to answer to Detective West about what I’ve been doing to his son.” He gives Barry another of those appraising once-overs that makes him shiver and stretch out for Len’s approval. “Beautiful.” 

Barry preens at the praise. He knows he shouldn’t—Len has used his weakness for praise against him on at least one heist already—but it feels so _good_ to win his approval. “Uh. Right. Going. Going now, and…uh, thanks. For…” He gestures feebly around the bedroom. “…all this.” 

Len offers him a wicked smirk. “It was my pleasure, and yours too, I take it.” 

“You’re the worst,” Barry says without thinking. It’s too fond. Before Len can reproach him, he dresses at superspeed and runs out without a proper goodbye.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of what's in this chapter calls back to [Let's Go Steal a Hero](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21633208). i tried to give enough context that it shouldn't be completely unreadable if you haven't read that one, but let me know if I should explain more or take bits out!

This is the last Barry hears from Len for weeks. He can’t help but sulk despite knowing it was probably his fault—he got too attached, too fond, and scared Len off. Hadn’t he said from the beginning he wasn’t looking for anything more than sex? And Barry pushed, because he doesn’t know how to just enjoy a good thing while he has it, and here they are. 

Fortunately for him, the STAR Labs team knows precisely the cure for sulking: a meta mystery. There have been sightings around town of people who went missing and were presumed dead—mostly poor or homeless people, whose missing persons cases were perfunctory or whose loss was ignored. Each of them boasts an alarming new meta power—metal manipulation, fire control, and telekinesis are among the more harmful. At the same time, new missing persons cases are being reported to CCPD. 

“The kidnapper is getting bolder,” Barry reports. “The latest case was a banker—an influential woman with a big family. The police are actually motivated now…”

“They won’t find anyone.” 

Everyone in the Cortex leaps to their feet. Lisa and Mick stand in the doorway, dressed not in their Rogues outfits but in street clothes. It gives both of them a strangely vulnerable air, as though they’ve come in with their guard down. Unfortunately, that feeling of vulnerability seems lost on the others, particularly Caitlin, who points a trembling finger at Mick. “Stay away from me.” 

“Now.” Lisa pouts at her. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re here to ask for your…help.” This is said with the requisite begrudging air. Barry thinks idly that after all the times the Rogues have partnered with Team Flash (to say nothing of Hartley’s bouncing between the two), they could do away with the feigned reluctance. “My brother is missing—kidnapped by someone who left bent metal in their wake. Mick and I have torn Central apart looking for him and we’ve found nothing, and if we haven’t found him, the police will be useless. So I thought perhaps our combined smarts…” This is said with a flirtatious glance at Cisco, who turns bright red. Barry wonders if he’s the only one having less-than-legal trysts. “…might be enough to find my brother. And everyone else who’s missing,” she adds on afterthought. 

“Your brother is missing?” Barry asks. 

Lisa turns to him with a contemplative pout. He wonders if she knows about his arrangement with Len. “Yes,” she murmurs. “For weeks.”

Barry feels vaguely as though he’s been struck. Weeks. Len has been missing for weeks, and Barry’s only thought was that he missed having sex. He’s a terrible person—no wonder Len doesn’t want anything more. “Uh. Well, we’ve tried triangulating a central position from the sightings and the missing persons reports, but so far, nothing.”

“I would try to vibe something, but there’s nothing left behind to vibe,” Cisco adds. 

Lisa reaches into her pocket and produces two things: Len’s goggles, one lens of which is cracked, and a small silver coin. “I might be able to help. The coin was left behind by whoever took my brother…as for the goggles, well. I know you can sometimes see where people are if you have something of theirs.” 

Cisco holds out a hand and takes the coin. The moment it touches his fingertips, his eyes widen and glaze over—he’s seeing something. “Whoa! This girl got the jump on your brother. Hit him around the head with a flying frying pan.” 

Caitlin clamps a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. Lisa glares at her. “Where did she take him?”

“Uh…I dunno. The vibe cuts out as soon as he loses consciousness.” Cisco gives his head a little shake as though to clear it. “And I dunno what you guys are picturing, but this girl is like thirteen. _Maybe_ fourteen. I dunno what her story is, but let’s not go charging in looking for vengeance when she might have been brainwashed or tortured or something.” 

Lisa’s face softens. Mick seems unmoved. “Depends on whether or not we get Snart back.” 

Reluctantly, Cisco takes the goggles. The moment he touches them, he drops them with a shout of “What the fuck?!” Caitlin lunges forward and folds him protectively into her arms. Barry blurts, “What is it?” at almost the same time as Lisa. 

“Wherever your brother is, he’s freezing!” Cisco shudders. “Like, bone-deep cold. There’s no light or anything, it’s just dark and cold.”

“A walk-in freezer?” Ronnie ventures. 

“Mmm, maybe.” Cisco doesn’t sound convinced. “It was, like, the worst chill I’ve ever felt in my life. Like I’d—he’d—never be warm again.” 

The way he says it jars loose a memory: pain, deep and searing and inescapable—the worst pain Barry has ever felt, including the shocking agony of the lightning strike. “Do you guys remember that organization that kidnapped me and all those other metas?” 

They glance at him. Slowly, Caitlin nods. “The ones that drugged you.”

“That drug made everything the most intense it’s ever been—took every sensation and dialed it up to eleven.” Barry presses a hand to his left shoulder. One of his captors had an affinity for driving a thin blade down between his scapula and clavicle—never deep enough to puncture his lung, but perfectly angled to hit a nerve. “Maybe L—Snart has been given the same drug?” 

Lisa follows his thought to its logical conclusion. “In which case, maybe it’s the same organization.”

“In the same base!” Cisco gives a jubilant shout and races toward the bank of monitors. “Oh, we are not this lucky. Come on, come on…” 

“What are you doing?” Barry bolts to his side. 

“Well, that building we infiltrated last time should be empty now—no electricity,” Cisco explains. “But if they’re keeping Snart in a freezer that size and that cold, there should be a noticeable amount of electricity feeding into the—what the hell is that?” 

Barry stares at the dark splotch on the map. “An electrical drain.”

“Well, yeah,” Cisco agrees, “but it’s something else, too.” He changes the view and yelps. “No, that’s an air pressure reading. The air in that industrial park—not in the building where they were holding you, Barry, the one next door—is _freezing.”_

Barry bolts into his suit. Without his permission, his brain has come to a conclusion that makes perfect sense and makes him very, very afraid. “We have to go.”

Cisco makes a noise that clearly means ‘wait.’ “No, you don’t, hang on!” He bolts away and returns with two sets of comms, which he thrusts at Mick and Lisa. “I know you’re gonna go charging in, so put these in so we can keep tabs on you.” 

Lisa obeys. Mick takes the comms with a grimace. “You mean I have to have you in my head the whole time?” 

“Yes,” they say in unison. Cisco punctuates it with an expressive eye-roll. 

Seven minutes later, Barry, Lisa, and Mick arrive at the suspicious facility. Barry clambers out of Lisa’s sidecar, feeling stiff and off-balance. He’s never riding in a motorcycle again, he decides, no matter what the circumstances. Together, they contemplate the imposing wire fence looming in front of them. 

“That’s where Lenny pretended to be doing maintenance work,” Lisa murmurs. “When we had to break you out.”

Barry feels ill. He might have put Len on this organization’s radar. Whatever happened, it might be because Len came after him. 

“Guys?” Cisco’s voice crackles over their earpieces. “I’m not seeing any power dampeners, which I guess makes sense if this facility is trying to train metas into killers, but that cold field is going to slow the Flash down. You’re gonna be doing this at normal speed until you can disable the field.”

“Do you think they set it up for him?” Lisa shoots him a sideways glance. “If they got my brother, maybe they took his gun?”

Barry can hear Cisco’s shrug in the tone of his voice. “I’m not sure. Oh! Hey, I might have found your way in.”

At Cisco’s instruction, they enter the adjacent building, under which Barry was held. He’s grateful that he doesn’t remember the front doors or the vast, forsaken lobby. The poorly-lit stairs don’t bring up any memories, although they have a distinctly B-rated horror movie feel to them that he and Lisa have to laugh off. Only when they step into Sublevel B does Barry have a flash of memory. 

“Oh God.” 

The hallway stretches dimly in front of them. To either side, doors open into unlit rooms—cells, the interior of which Barry remembers all too well. He doesn’t notice he’s stopped moving until Lisa lays a hand on his arm. “Come on,” she urges, surprisingly gently. “My brother might be in a cell just like that. We have to get him out.” 

Cisco’s voice comes back over the comms. “You’re gonna have to go all the way down the hallway. There’s a door at the end—go through that and then down the stairs.” 

Barry manages a weak smile. “Great, more stairs.” 

He keeps his eyes locked forward as they walk down the hallway until they reach the end. Then sick curiosity overcomes him and he risks a glimpse into cell 18. The table in the middle of the room is untouched—the restraints still hang open exactly as they did when Len rescued him. The floor is still pink ( _with his blood,_ he doesn’t allow himself to think). His shoulder twinges with remembered pain and he forces himself to turn his eyes forward again. There’s nothing to be done about his memories. All they can hope to do now is prevent something similarly horrible from happening to Len. 

The door at the end of the hallway swings open on another set of haunted-looking stairs. These, thankfully, are lit by fluorescent lights that chase away some of the ghostly atmosphere but imply something more alarming. 

“These are in use,” Lisa muses. 

Mick draws his gun and primes it. “Not for long.” 

The door at the bottom of the stairs is nearly identical to the one at the top. Barry isn’t sure he can bring himself to open it—he’s too afraid of what he’ll find—but Mick pushes it open without hesitation and steps through, gun at the ready. “Time to fry, you bastards!” 

The cold is more intense down here. The air is light and sharp; every breath burns Barry’s nose and saps his strength. He ought to zip through the hallway, looking for the core of Len’s gun. No doubt it’s plugged into the wall somewhere, emitting a cold field to keep the captured metas docile and protect them from the Flash. Unfortunately, he can’t run; he can only trudge through the cold air like he’s wading through a bog. For no good reason, he continues not down the hall toward the bursts of gunfire (at least he knows where Mick is) but to the nearest door. 

“Flash!” Lisa hisses. 

“I have an idea,” he murmurs. 

The door opens upon a scorched cell. In the middle of it—Barry’s eyes must be failing him—sits a man who strongly resembles Barry’s college boyfriend. The floor around him is burnt black, but he’s untouched.

“…Warren?” 

The man leaps to his feet and flings out his hands in a gesture reminiscent of Firestorm. Flames spring to life in his palms and lick up his forearms. “Come in, I dare you,” he snarls. “I don’t care what you do to me, I’m not gonna be one of your good little meta-pets.” 

Barry holds up his hands. “I’m not here to hurt you!” he blurts. “I’m here to let you go.” He anticipated having to instruct the imprisoned metas to wreak havoc on their captors, but he doubts such an injunction is necessary when this particular meta is clearly out for blood. 

The fiery metahuman shoulders past him and runs down the hallway to help Mick and Lisa. Barry watches him go—it is, he can confirm, Warren from college—before trudging across the hallway to open more doors. 

This hallway must be metahumans in the process of being tortured, he decides after the fifth meta runs down the hallway to join the fight. Most of them flinch when he opens the door, but when he stands aside, they all take the offer of freedom. None of them have attacked him, although he knows there are those who might, including the magnetic meta who took Len. 

The sixth door swings open on a room encrusted with ice. The chill hits Barry in a wave, making him too cold to even shiver. The thick layer of frost must have damaged the light bulb, because the cell is black as night, illuminated only by the light from the doorway as it reflects off the ice. A figure in the corner of the cell huddles closer to the frozen wall. “Don’t, don’t, don’t…”

“Shh, hey.” Barry takes a careful step into the cell. The closer he gets to the huddled figure, the colder he becomes. “It’s okay, you’re safe. I’m gonna get you out.”

The huddled figure shifts. Barry glimpses hazy ice-blue eyes in a shockingly thin face. _“Scarlet?”_

“Len.” Barry drops to his knees as though he’s been struck. Len skitters away from him, both hands coming up to shield his face. Barry’s panicked cry—for Lisa, for Mick, for whoever hears—freezes in his throat. “Ohmygod, Len. What did they do to you?” 

“You’re not real.” Len doesn’t look at him. Thick white fog, reminiscent of Killer Frost’s, drifts from his palms and the air temperature plummets further. Barry’s thoughts are starting to turn sluggish, but he doesn’t dare step into the hallway to warm up. “You weren’t real, you haven’t been real, you’re not real.” 

Without thinking, Barry reaches out to touch Len’s face. A touch might convince him where words can’t—might convince both of them that this is real. He’s not prepared for Len to flinch away with a frantic, half-coherent shout of “Don’t, I’ll hurt you!” 

“No, shh.” Barry keeps making meaningless soothing noises under his breath until slowly, slowly Len allows him to touch his face. The chill of his skin freezes Barry’s palm even through his glove, but he pretends not to feel it. The last thing he wants is to give Len the idea that he really has hurt him. “Shh, no, you’re not hurting me. Come on, we have to get you out of here. Come on, I’ve got you.”

Len allows Barry to help him up. As soon as they’re standing, he presses into Barry’s arms, shivering so badly it’s hard to keep hold of him. Barry keeps whispering reassurances as they walk. He has no idea what he’s saying, his mind too frozen to process a word of it, but it must be what Len needs to hear. 

They step through the doorway into a scene of utter chaos. The remaining doors in the hallway have been broken open; metahumans are facing each other warily, embracing, or celebrating their victory over their captors. In the midst of it all, Mick and Lisa stand directing traffic. As soon as she sees them, Lisa runs over with a little cry. “Lenny? _Lenny?!”_

Len flinches away. Barry holds him tighter and explains in low tones, “They turned him into some kind of ice meta. He’s frozen and terrified of freezing anyone who touches him.”

“He’s my brother!” Lisa snaps. She reaches out a hand to him, but before she can touch his face, she pulls away with a soft whimper. “He’s so cold.” 

Mick strides over, his eyes locked on Len’s shivering form. Before Barry can protest, he swaddles Len in his leather jacket, which dwarfs him comically, and scoops him up bridal-style. “Gotcha, partner,” he says, low and soft. Len stirs, looks around, and murmurs, 

“Lisa? Mick?” 

“I’m here, Lenny.” Lisa reaches for her again. This time, she’s able to touch him, although she bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. Barry wants to pull her away, but that isn’t his place. “I’m here. Just like you’ve always been for me.”

Len leans into Mick’s chest, still shivering. Barry mumbles, “Take him back to STAR Labs. Caitlin might know what to do to warm him up.”

Lisa tilts her head at him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m too cold to run, and someone has to look after the other metas.” Barry jerks his head at the chaos down the hallway. “Send the Firestorm trio to me when you get there, and Cisco too, if he’s willing to come.”

“You can’t get them yourself?” Lisa taps her ear. Barry reaches up to his earbud, which went quiet the moment he entered Len’s cell. 

“I think they don’t do so well in the cold.” 

She nods. Then, somewhat surprisingly, she touches his cheek. “I’ll have Cisco bring you new earbuds so we can keep you up to date on Lenny’s progress.” 

They go up the back stairs. Barry is left alone with close to two dozen metahumans who are eyeing him with varying levels of hostility. “Uh, hey,” he offers feebly. There are no responses. Fleetingly, he wonders if he'll be able to manage them until Cisco and the Firestorm trio arrive.


	3. Chapter 3

An hour later, he, Cisco, and the Firestorm trio have met with each metahuman and examined the facility. What they find is disturbing. Whereas the neighboring facility was devoted to brainwashing metahumans into service, this one is devoted to _creating_ metahumans and then brainwashing them. By the time Barry finds the laboratory where people were brought to be given their powers, he feels ill. How did anyone survive this? 

By the time they’re done and feel comfortable calling the police, Barry is grateful he’s not the CSI on call today. He couldn’t take having to look through all this again. He couldn’t bear to catalogue the drugs and the implements and the tiny, individual capsules of dark matter that must have been stolen from STAR Labs or Mercury Labs or somewhere similar. He couldn’t face those cells again, knowing what those poor people have endured. 

“Man.” Cisco lays a hand on his shoulder. “I shouldn’t have let you stay, not after what these people did to you. Go back to STAR Labs, make sure Snart and Frost haven’t started an ice war in the Cortex. We’ve got it.” 

Barry shifts guiltily. It’s been months since his capture and rescue; he should be over it by now. The last thing he wants is to make more work for his friends because he’s too weak to look at a few bottles. “I can stay—”

“No, really.” Ronnie reaches over to rub a hand across his shoulders. “I don’t like the thought of Caity alone with those Rogues. I’ll feel better with you there.” 

Reluctantly, Barry speeds back to STAR Labs. He’s barely made it in the door when Mick grabs him and pins him against the wall. 

“Tell your little doctor friend to work faster, or I’m gonna start burning your precious tech.”

Things aren’t going well, then. Barry flips them around just to prove he can; then, while Mick is still fuming about being pinned, he speeds through the hallways looking for Caitlin. He finds her in one of the abandoned labs on the second floor, looking through a frozen window into a misty exam room. 

“He’s still cold?”

Caitlin nods. “He's been drugged so heavily that he can't control his power. It would be bad enough for someone like you, who's had experience with their power. Given that his is new to him, I'm worried it might kill him.” She glances through the window another time. “I wish I knew how to help, but this isn’t how Frost manifested. I would have ice form around me, but I wasn’t cold the way he is.” 

Barry looks into the frosty exam room. Len is curled on the cot, arms wrapped around himself, shivering helplessly. The sight breaks his heart. “…I think I have an idea, but you have to promise not to yell at me.”

Caitlin nods. She clearly wants him to explain, but if he does that, she’ll try to stop him. Instead, he speeds home just long enough to grab a thick, fuzzy blanket that Joe bought him because it’s a good texture. He returns to the lab, the blanket trailing behind him like a heavy cape. When he reaches the exam room, he strips out of his suit, bolts inside, and curls under the blanket with Len. 

“Hey,” he coos, just to let Len know he has company. 

Hazy blue eyes meet his. “Scarlet?” Len mumbles. His fingers brush over Barry’s face. The moment they make contact, he lets out a soft, desperate noise and flattens his palm against Barry’s cheek. Barry reaches up and holds it in place despite how quickly his skin goes numb where they touch. 

“I’m here,” he murmurs. “And this is gonna sound weird, but I need you to take off your clothes.” 

It’s a mark of how frozen and bewildered he is that Len doesn’t protest or make a joke. Within the confines of the blanket, he strips out of the frost-coated smock they put on him at the facility. As soon as he’s free of it, Barry presses against him, trying to share his superhuman heat. Len’s skin is so cold it burns, but Barry doesn’t flinch back—he doesn’t dare. 

“I’m here,” he coos. Like this, the cold is more intense than it was in Len’s cell. It settles into Barry’s bones, spreads a thin layer of frost over all of his thoughts, turns his cheeks to putty and his tongue to lead. Still, it’s worth it for the way Len’s shivering stops, for the way he presses into Barry’s warmth and won’t let go. 

Barry doesn’t know how long they stay cuddled together. He’s cold down to his core, so frozen he can’t remember what it’s like to be warm. He knows he won’t die of it—even now, his body is probably fighting to warm up—but the temptation to close his eyes and sleep is overwhelming. 

“Barry. Barry.” There’s a gentle tap on his cheeks. With a sort of dreamy detachment, he notes that his eyes have fallen closed. They’re far too heavy to open, and he’s far too sleepy to try. “Scarlet. Come on, wake up.” 

Len. Barry purrs happily in his throat. Len is talking, and not shivering, and that makes everything okay…

_“Barry!”_

Barry jolts. His eyes fly open of their own accord, and he finds himself staring up at Len’s too-thin, haggard face. There’s only the barest sliver of light to see by—otherwise, everything is fluffy darkness. Right. He’s wrapped in a blanket cocoon, trying to warm an ice meta. Perhaps not his brightest idea. 

Len visibly relaxes the moment Barry opens his eyes. “You’re alive,” he murmurs. His hand cradles Barry’s cheek. While not precisely warm, it’s no longer as icy cold as it was before. “I thought I killed you.” 

“Can’t kill me,” Barry murmurs. His tongue hasn’t quite thawed enough for him to speak without slurring, so his words may not be as reassuring as he means them to be. “’M too hot for cold to kill me.” 

Len doesn’t look amused. “What were you thinking?” he demands. “Coming in here, coming near me. I don’t have control—I could have hurt you. I could have _killed you._ Do you think I want that on my conscience, killing someone—killing _you?_ —because I can’t control myself?” 

Barry murmurs something in the negative and huddles closer. Len cradles him closer even as he continues to scold, “You should have left me in here, taken Lisa and Mick away until the drugs wore off. I could have gotten myself under control without putting you at risk!” 

“I didn’t wanna leave you alone,” Barry murmurs. This seems absurdly simple, so he doesn’t quite understand why Len furrows his brow and gapes at him. 

“Why?” 

Barry is too cold for this. If he was more awake and could think properly, he might be able to answer this in the _right_ way, rather than the honest one. “I care about you. It makes me sad to see you hurt.” 

Len looks utterly uncomprehending. “I’m a terrible person,” he reminds him. “I’ve hurt you before and I’ll do so again. I deserved every form of torture they subjected me to in that facility. In what world do you care about seeing me hurt?” 

Barry feels cold and stupid. He can’t answer questions like that on a good day; how is he supposed to answer when he can barely form a coherent thought? “This one. The one where I accidentally fell in love with you and now I can’t watch you be hurt.” 

Len’s expression does something odd. Before Barry can ask what it means, he sees delicate ice crystals form along Len’s lower lashes. 

“Oh, no no no, don’t cry, I broke you, please don’t cry.” Barry latches onto him and keeps whispering soothing nothings. “No no no, you’re safe, it’s okay, we’re in a safe world and you’re safe and I’m safe and nobody is hurt now and you’re safe.” 

Len curls into him with a little noise that, from anyone else, Barry might call a sob. New ice crystals form along the inside of their blanket cocoon, but there’s no sharp drop in temperature. Barry suspects Len is too tired for his power to act out. 

“It’s okay,” he coos. “It’s okay. You’re not terrible, you’re safe and you won’t be hurt anymore. It’s okay.” 

Len sniffles his way to relative calmness. Barry holds him the whole time, despite the renewed numbness in his arms. He only lets go when Len speaks with a soft, weary voice. “I should go find Lisa and Mick. They’re worried.” 

Barry can’t help feeling a pang of loss. He should take the time to warm himself up (and let Caitlin chide him for subjecting himself to prolonged subzero temperatures), but he doesn’t want to stop cuddling. “Are you warm?” 

Len glances at him, quick and fond. “Yes, Scarlet. Your absolute foolishness seems to have done the trick.” 

“Oh.” Barry shifts. The brush of ice-crusted blanket fluff against his belly reminds him that he’s naked except for his briefs. “Uh, I would cuddle you again to warm you up. If you needed to. And if…y’know, if it wasn’t bad. We could also do warm-up sex?” 

Len’s hand cradles his face. “Don’t worry. I fully intend to return and berate you for what a dangerous, absurd plan this was.”

“And cuddling can happen?” Barry offers hopefully. 

“And cuddling can happen,” Len concedes. He shifts so the blanket no longer covers his head. “Uh, Scarlet…what happened to my clothes?”

“You let me take them off. I can fix that.” 

There’s no point putting Len back in the prisoner’s smock he’d been wearing before. Instead, Barry clambers into the Flash suit, which is coated in a fine patina of frost, and goes in search of spare clothes. He returns with jeans borrowed from Ronnie and a thick, dark sweater from Professor Stein. “Uh…here you go. I’m still kinda too frozen to speed-dress you.” 

Len enfolds the clothes in the blanket cocoon. Two minutes later, he emerges fully dressed. Better yet, the clothes show no sign of being iced over. “Thank you, Scarlet. Now, where have your friends put my sister?” 

“She was right behind me.” Barry hadn’t meant to fetch her to watch her brother dress; she’d overheard him begging clothes from the others and followed him down. As soon as he speaks, there’s a light shove against his shoulder. He steps inside to let Lisa through. “I guess I’ll just…go, then.”

“I told you,” Len calls after him. “Berating. Soon.” 

Barry can handle being berated if it involves cuddling. In the interim, he goes in search of a hot shower and something warm to eat. (He leaves hot soup and tea in the breakroom after sending Lisa a text about them. Len might berate him for those too—after all, they’re not nearly that familiar with each other—but he decides he can deal with it. If it ensures Len’s comfort, he doesn’t regret it.)


End file.
